INSTALL ======= ---- Any knowledge of how to work with mouse and icons is not required. --------------------------- Install all needed packages --------------------------- See << REQUIREMENTS >> for a list of required software. You don't need everything listed there. In particular, mp3, ogg vorbis and aac, ortp support is optional. Autoconf will detect what is installed on your system and will only try to build those executables that can be built with your setup. Note that no special library (not even the mp3 decoding library libmad) is needed for para_server if you only want to stream mp3 files. Also, it's fine to use para_server on a box without sound card as para_server only sends the audio stream to connected clients. ------------------------- Install server and client ------------------------- Install the package on all machines, you'd like this software to run on: (./configure && make) > /dev/null There should be no errors but probably some warnings about missing software packages which usually implies that not all audio formats will be supported. If headers or libs are installed at unusual locations you might need to tell the configure script to find them. Try ./configure --help to see a list of options. If the paraslash package was compiled successfully, execute as root, make install ----------------------------------- Setup user list and create rsa keys ----------------------------------- If you already have your rsa keys, skip this step. If you are new to paraslash, you have to generate an rsa key pair for each user you want to allow to connect. You need at least one user. Let's assume that you'd like to run the server on host server_host as user foo, and that you want to connect from client_host as user bar. As foo@server_host, create ~/.paraslash/server.users by typing the following commands: user=bar target=~/.paraslash/server.users key=~/.paraslash/key.pub.$user perms=AFS_READ,AFS_WRITE,VSS_READ,VSS_WRITE mkdir -p ~/.paraslash echo "user $user $key $perms" >> $target This gives "bar" the full privileges. Change to the bar account on client_host and generate the key-pair with the commands key=~/.paraslash/key.$LOGNAME mkdir -p ~/.paraslash (umask 077 && openssl genrsa -out $key) Next, extract its public part: pubkey=~/.paraslash/key.pub.$LOGNAME openssl rsa -in $key -pubout -out $pubkey and copy the public key just created to server_host (you may skip this step for a single-user setup, i.e. if foo=bar and server_host=client_host): scp $pubkey foo@server_host:.paraslash/ Finally, tell para_client to connect to server_host: conf=~/.paraslash/client.conf echo 'hostname server_host' > $conf ----------------- Start para_server ----------------- Before starting the server make sure you have write permissions to the directory /var/paraslash. sudo chown $user /var/paraslash Alternatively, use the --afs_socket Option to specify a different location for the afs command socket. For this first try, we'll use a debug level of two to make the output of para_server more verbose. para_server -l 2 Now you can use para_client to connect to the server and issue commands. Open a new shell (as "bar" on "client_host" in the above example) and try para_client help para_client si to retrieve the list of available commands and some server info. Don't proceed if this doesn't work. ------------------- Create the database ------------------- para_client init This creates some empty tables under ~/.paraslash/afs_database. You normally don't need to look at these tables, but it's good to know that you can start from scratch with rm -rf ~/.paraslash/afs_database in case something went wrong. Next, you need to fill the audio file table of that database with contents so that para_server knows about your audio files. Choose an absolute path to a directory containing some audio files and add them to the audio file table: para_client add /my/mp3/dir This might take a while, so it is a good idea to start with a directory containing not too many audio files. Note that the table only contains data about the audio files found, not the files themselves. Print a list of all audio files found with para_client ls ------------------------ Start streaming manually ------------------------ para_client play para_client stat 2 This starts streaming and dumps some information about the current audio file to stdout. You should now be able to receive the stream and listen to it. If you have mpg123 or xmms handy, execute on client_host mpg123 http://server_host:8000/ or xmms http://server_host:8000/ Paraslash comes with its own receiving and playing software, which will be described next. Try the following on client_host (assuming Linux/ALSA and an mp3 stream): para_recv -l 2 -r 'http -i server_host' > file.mp3 # (interrupt with CTRL+C after a few seconds) ls -l file.mp3 # should not be empty para_filter -f mp3dec -f wav < file.mp3 > file.wav ls -l file.wav # should be much bigger than file.mp3 para_write -w alsa < file.wav If this works, proceed. Otherwise double check what is logged by para_server and use the --loglevel option of para_recv, para_filter and para_write to increase verbosity. Next, put the pieces together: para_recv -r 'http -i server_host' \ | para_filter -f mp3dec -f wav \ | para_write -w alsa --------------------- Configure para_audiod --------------------- In order to automatically start the right decoder at the right time and to offer to the clients some information on the current audio stream and on paraslash's internal state, you should run the local audio daemon, para_audiod, on every machine in your network which is supposed to play the audio stream. Try para_audiod -h for help. Usually you have to specify only server_host as the receiver specifier for each supported audio format, like this: para_audiod -l 2 -r 'mp3:http -i server_host' The preferred way to use para_audiod is to run it once at system start as an unprivileged user. para_audiod needs to create a "well-known" socket for the clients to connect to. The default path for this socket is /var/paraslash/audiod_socket.$HOSTNAME so the /var/paraslash directory should be writable for the user who runs para_audiod. If you want to change the location of the socket, use the -s option for para_audiod or the config file ~/.paraslash/audiod.conf to change the default. Note that in this case you'll also have to specify the same value for para_audioc's -s option. If para_server is playing, you should be able to listen to the audio stream as soon as para_audiod is started. Once it is running, try para_audioc stat That should dump some information to stdout. Other commands include para_audioc off para_audioc on para_audioc sb para_audioc term para_audioc cycle -------------- Start para_gui -------------- para_gui reads the output of "para_audioc stat" and displays that information in a curses window. It also allows you to bind keys to arbitrary commands. There are several flavours of key-bindings: - internal: These are the built-in commands that can not be changed (help, quit, loglevel, version...). - external: Shutdown curses before launching the given command. Useful for starting other ncurses programs from within para_gui, e.g. aumix or dialog scripts. Or, use the mbox output format to write a mailbox containing one mail for each (admissible) file the audio file selector knows about. Then start mutt from within para_gui to browse your collection! - display: Launch the command and display its stdout in para_gui's bottom window. - para: Like display, but start "para_client " instead of "". This concludes the installation notes. Next thing you might to have a look at is how to use paraslash's audio file selector. See << README.afs >>